The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes about his experience during the Vietnam War. Many of these stories are what he can or cannot remember. An interesting approach the author takes is whether or not a story has happened or if he imagined what happened and then later on reveals the truth to some of them. As the readers, we may or may never find out if certain stories are true or not which causes the reader to become indulged in the selections of the chapters. Throughout the novel he describes the soldiers lives before and after, their experiences during the war, and how they changed as people when it all ended. Each chapter remains significantly different from the next, each has an important morality behind it and a lesson we all learn in our lives, also changing factors we come to approach. O’Brien gives insights into the soldier 's minds and the truth about what it means to be a soldier. The chapters seem to have another interesting approach by flipping between modern day and into the past. Tim …show more content…
Tim O’Brien implies to the reader throughout the book that soldiers are just human beings like the rest of us, by telling us their stories and hardships our minds are changed and we can understand the realities of what actually happened during Vietnam. Despite the minimal knowledge of knowing who was or was not real, the book allows us to understand all the same. For half of the novel having fictional characters who never existed, O’Brien is able to still allow his points to get across. With his use of figurative language, the comparisons enable an open door for the ethos he gave us all along. Tim O’Brien uses his stories to effectively communicate with his audience about Vietnam by effectively using the approach of figurative language and achieving what he wants to communicate by using metaphors, repetition, and giving a message or